Sometimes you can know things. Things about yourself. Things from before you can remember.

She could not read a book for fear of the feelings she might find in it.

Of course I loved books more than people. Of course I valued "Jane Eyre" over the anonymous stranger...Of course all of Shakespeare was worth more than a human life.

The funeral was over, at last I could cry. Except that I couldn't. My tears, kept in too long, had fossilized. They would have to stay in forever now.

There is something about words. In expert hands, manipulated deftly, they take you prisoner.

There are too many books in the world to read in a single lifetime; you have to draw the line somewhere.

My genius is not so frail a thing that it cowers from the dirty fingers of newspapernen.